Nancy Grace Averages 877k on Thursday; Beats Most Of CNN Primetime Lineup

Is Nancy Grace the next king of cable news? CNNers are buzzing about her highest ratings to date: On Thursday, Grace’s 8pm Headline News show averaged 877,000 total viewers, and 334,000 in the 25-54 demographic.

It was her highest P2+ and P25-54 number to date, and it came near the end of a great ratings week for the attorney-turned-TV-star: For the week, Monday through Thursday, Grace has averaged 761,000 total viewers, a 53% increase over her May 2005 average of 498,000 viewers, according to CNN. In the 25-54 demo, Grace averaged 277,000 viewers Mon-Thur, up 80% over her May average of 154,000.

Grace beat Lou Dobbs, Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn and Aaron Brown, and she wasn’t too far away from Larry King. For the record, here are her daily numbers for last week:

Monday: 642,000 / Tuesday: 745,000 / Wednesday: 779,000 / Thursday: 877,000

> Update: 10:20am: “The fact that Greta Van Susteren’s ratings are 2 and 3 and 4x’s Grace’s each night seems to have been lost on you,” an e-mailer says.

> Update #2: 2:03pm: “No one is even comparing Fox to Nancy Grace. Of course Fox is the big gorilla on the block…however Grace is getting better numbers each month.”